Michael Denny Discusses the ‘PlayStation 4’

The Playstation 4 was announced on February 20 as part of this year’s Playstation Meeting. While there were many who thought that the system’s time wasn’t here yet, the presentation changed a lot of attitudes. The console appeared to be capable of truly next-generation graphics, and Sony looks to have a number of plans ready.

This is a stark difference to the Playstation 3, whose release saw only a handful of launch titles. Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune are great games, but that’s not nearly enough to hang a new system’s entire release on.

Michael Denny, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Studios at Sony Europe assures us that the same mistakes won’t be made going forward with the Playstation 4. Denny talked to Official Playstation Magazine about the philosophies and ideas behind the next-generation platform, discussing first the casual market.

“PlayStation 4 can still be enjoyed old school without an Internet connection at all. So it depends what level you want to use these feature sets at. So with ’simple’ and ’immediacy’ we want it so that everything is one button click away, for example. And ’immediacy’ takes down these barriers that can be frustrating to gamers between the player getting access to the content.”

Denny then talked about how they made this system with developers in mind, and Sony’s attempt at making their services more balanced. Playstation Network probably stands out as one of Sony’s “need to improve” areas.

“I think to have a successful new system you need great software, you need great hardware and nowadays you need a great network as well. All of them are important.”

“Inside the box we’ve architected it in such a away as to give developers the best shot, the best way possible of creating truly great content. Because at the end of the day that’s what the differentiator will be.”

Denny discussed the new Dualshock 4 controller, which features a new touchpad, “Share” button and “Lightbar.” Denny is quick to note that though the controller will be able to interact with the Playstation 4’s add-on camera, it is not a replacement for the Move controller.

“So it’s not a Move controller because the Move controller is different and the Move will be compatible with PlayStation 4 and the new camera. The new controller, the DualShock 4, I think the feature your talking about is the light bar and how that may interact with the camera.”

The interview features a number of other, more miscellaneous questions. Head on over to Playstation Magazine to read the rest!